28

Jun

Connection Is Surprisingly Possible

As you all know, I am back in Hemis, the holy monastery that I spent many years since age of 7 or 8 in spiritual retreats and trainings. Ladakh is the place I feel most at home. Everytime I feel so happy to be here and so sad to leave. Although I know this is a form of attachment and it's not advisable to be attached to anything in this world, I can't help it. Many great gurus and holy dakinis have blessed this beautiful place and they have left many of their foot prints, hand prints, stupas, palaces, statues and all sorts of self arising holy imprints for us to have a chance to be reconnected with our own primordially pure nature.

All of us need different sorts of inspiration and encouragement, especially places, monuments and people who can inspire us to do good things and be kind. I am so happy that Ladakh, Ladakhis and Ladakhi heritage are here to help us with this. Again, I want to welcome everyone to visit Ladakh and to fall in love with Ladakh. It's better to be in love with something good than something bad, isn't it?

When I arrived the day before yesterday, I was surprised at the warm reception provided to me. It's of course not unusual. Everytime I come home, the local people always manage to provide warm, colourful and traditional reception to show their love and support. This time, I was moved to meet some very old friends of mine, like P Namgyal the ex Union Minister and the president of Ladakh Buddhist Association and Ladakh Gompa Association. These are all my very old friends, some of whom I hardly met recently and therefore I was quite moved to see them at the airport reception. I want to thank everyone for making this much effort. I hope my arrival has not brought any inconvenience to my beloved friends and students and the government.

Today will be the first day of the big Vajra Yogini initiation for the monks and nuns and it will start in a few minutes at 9am. I am not expecting any lay people to be here because this is peak tourist season and most of the lay people must be very busy trying to make a living. But I was told that many of them wish to join, I am very happy to learn about this.

The initiation will most likely last until 6th July and preparation for the Hemis Festival will start right after that with the main festival day on 10th July. Hemis Festival falls on the birthday of Guru Padmasambhava. Not only Hemis, but many monasteries are celebrating the birthday of our beloved Guru Rinpoche. This is a celebration of a great guru in human form who took Tantric Buddhism to the Himalayas. This year exceptionally, there will be many dignitaries from different political parties, such as high profiled ministers, joining us, as I was told. I know they are coming solely for the blessings, because politics for the sake and benefit of the people definitely needs great blessings. I hope some blessings will be bestowed so that our beloved country and people of India will not only be prospering in the economic sense but also in the spiritual sense. That goes with everyone in this world and in this universe. I always believe that if blessings are sought with a pure heart and pure motivation, they will be granted, I can almost guarantee that.

I am very surprised that there is such a good connection at Hemis. I never expected this and since it happens that way, though it's quite scary to see this happening, I thought why not updating something here to entertain you. My student Dorjay from Kaya has updated many photos on our Drukpa Facebook. So thanks to him, many of you must have known all the details. Goodbye for now!